Works (CSEL) 4

[BOOK ONE.] Concerning paradise, in the foregoing books, according to our capacity, as best we could, we set forth the meaning which the Lord poured in, and our understanding discovered—the meaning in which the fall of Adam and Eve is comprised. Now, since that guilt did not stand still in its authors, but, what is worse, found a heir yet more degenerate, let us take up the ensuing history, and pursue in our work those things which are joined according to the divine Scriptures. 'Now Adam knew Eve his wife, who conceived and bore Cain, and said: I have acquired a man through God.' What things we acquire—out of what, and from whom, and through what we acquire them—is wont to be considered: out of what, as out of matter; from whom, the one who is the author; through what, as through some instrument. Surely he does not here speak thus:

'I have acquired a man through God,' so that you should understand God to be the instrument? Not at all, but so that you should understand God to be the author and worker. Hence she rendered the greater honor to God, because she said: 'I have acquired a man through God,' so that we too, when we acquire anything, or in all favorable outcomes, ought to render it to God rather than arrogate it to ourselves. And it adds that 'she bore Abel.' When something is added, what was there before is taken away. This is gathered both from the portions of arithmetic and from the thoughts of the soul; for by adding a number another number is made, the former is abolished, and a new thought coming in excludes the former. Therefore when Abel is added, Cain is taken away. Which is more fully perceived by the interpretation of the names.

For Cain is called 'acquisition,' because he would acquire all things for himself; Abel is one who would refer all things to God, devoted with the pious attention of his mind, arrogating nothing to himself as the elder brother, but assigning the whole to the Creator—namely, whatever he had received from Him. There are thus two parties under the name of the two brothers, contending against one another and contrary to each other: the one which assigns the whole to its own mind as to a ruling principle and as to a certain author of all thought and feeling and motion—that is, the one which ascribes all inventions to human genius; the other which renders the whole to God as to the worker and Creator of all, and submits all things to His governance as to a parent and ruler. The former is signified by Cain, the latter is called Abel.

These two parties one soul brings forth, and therefore they are held to be of the same parentage, because they are founded in one womb; but they are contrary, because it is necessary that, when they have been brought forth by a certain birth of the soul, they be divided and separated; for there cannot be one lodging perpetually for those who fight against each other. Lastly, Rebecca, when she was bringing forth the two natures of human disposition—one of evil, the other of good—and felt them leaping within her womb (for Esau was a figure of malice, while Jacob bore the form of goodness), wondering what that was, since she perceived a certain discord of the conceived offspring, consulted God, that He might disclose her suffering and give a remedy. And so to her as she prayed an answer was given: 'Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples shall go forth from your belly.'

But if you refer this to the soul, you will understand the same to be the parent of good and of evil, because from a certain fountain of the soul each flows forth; yet it belongs to sober judgment that, rejecting the evil, it should as it were nourish and strengthen what is good. Before, therefore, the soul brings forth the good—that is, the reverence owed to God, so that it may refer the whole to Him—it prefers its own; but when it has begotten the confession which is rendered to God, it lays down the swelling of its own heart. Therefore God, by adding the good teaching of the soul, Abel, took away the wicked teaching, Cain.

Yet I in this place rather understand, according to Scripture, the mystery of two peoples: that God, by adding to His Church the faith of a pious people, took away the perfidy of a transgressing people, since indeed the very words seem to signify this, when God says: 'Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples shall go forth from your belly.' This figure of the synagogue and of the Church went before of old in these two brothers, Cain and Abel. By Cain is understood the parricidal people of the Jews, who persecuted the blood of their Lord and Author, and—according to the childbearing of the Virgin Mary—of their brother, so to speak; but by Abel is understood the Christian cleaving to God, as also David says:

'But for me it is good to cleave to God,' that one may join himself to heavenly things and separate himself from earthly. And elsewhere: 'My soul,' he says, 'fainted for your word,' because he had set the order of his living and his practice not in earthly pleasures, but in the knowledge of the word. From which it is recognized that even this was not idly written, but weightily and with examination, which we read in the books of Kings: 'And he was laid with his fathers.' For it is given to be understood that he was like the fathers in faith. Whence it is clear that this is referred not to the burial of the body, but to the fellowship of life. Lastly, concerning Isaac it is not thought to be written carelessly that, leaving the appearance of this body, which was joined to his soul, he was laid with his kindred, because he cleaved to the manners of his father.

Beautifully, moreover, it says 'to his kindred,' not 'to his people,' as elsewhere. For we read in other places that men were laid 'to their people,' but these were not so eminent; the more eminent is he who has been like the few and not the many—there are more in one's people than in one's kindred—and it is reckoned more excellent to be like the few than the many. He therefore who was begotten by the promise of God, who was chosen for the sacrifice of proving piety, who was content with the society of one wife—that is, of wisdom alone—of that lofty kindred which is one and ever in agreement with itself, had to be established by the testimony of divine Scripture as no imitator of plebeian baseness.

For indeed where there is labor, teaching, meditation, there is a fellowship common with many and a certain popular partnership. For very many make progress by hearing, whom He called 'the people.' But where the discipline is received not by human tradition, but by ingenious deduction without the exertion of labor, there is the uncorrupted sincerity of a sublime kindred. And therefore Isaac, as a gift of God, is read to have been laid 'with his kindred' rather than 'with his people,' so that you may recognize that he was a diligent imitator of things divine rather than of things human. Blessed too is that mind which, surpassing both the species and the kindred itself, merits to hear what was said to Moses when he was separated from the people: 'But you, stand here with Me.'

For just as in Isaac the figure of the Lord's incarnation, surpassing the custom of human generation, overcame those who went before, so that in him not vulgar and popular grace, but a special prerogative excelled—as the lesson teaches: 'For to Abraham the promises were spoken, and to his seed. He does not say, And to seeds, as of many, but as of one, that is, To your seed, which is Christ'—so also in Moses, a figure of the Teacher to come, who would teach the law, preach the gospel, fulfill the old testament, establish the new, and give heavenly nourishment to the peoples, exceeded the dignity of the human condition so far that he was honored with the name of God, as we have it written, the Lord saying: 'I have set you as a god to Pharaoh.'

For indeed, as a victor over all passions and captured by no allurements of the world, who had clothed all this dwelling in the body with the purity of a heavenly manner of life, ruling his mind, subduing his flesh, and chastening it with a certain kingly authority, he was called by the name of God, to whose likeness he had formed himself by the abundance of perfect virtue. And therefore we do not read of him, as of the rest, that 'failing, he died,' but that 'he died by the word of God'; for God suffers neither failure nor diminution, nor receives addition. Whence Scripture also added that 'no one knows his burial unto this present day,' so that you may understand his translation rather than his perishing; for death is a certain departure of soul and body.

He died therefore 'by the word of God,' as Scripture says, not 'according to the word,' so that you may mark that not the message of death, but the gift of grace is expressed: he who was translated rather than abandoned, whose burial no one knows. For who on earth could find his remains, whom the Son of God showed in the Gospel to be with Him? Lastly, Elijah too was seen together with Him, who was translated in a chariot, and is read neither to have been buried nor to have died; for he lives who is with the Son of God. But Moses is indeed read to have died, yet to have died 'by the word of God,' through which all things were made. And 'by the word of God the heavens were established'; through the word of God, therefore, there is not the collapse of a work, but a firmament.

He is not therefore found, as if relapsing into the earth, by the dissolution of the body, but as if granted by the operation of the heavenly word and by its gift, so that his flesh received rest rather than a tomb. Well, moreover, is the distance preserved between the Lord and the servant, that you may understand the prerogative of the Lord, the grace of the servant. Of Moses it is read that 'no one knows his burial'; but of Christ, that 'His burial was taken up from the earth,' because the one, according to the mystery of the law, was awaiting redemption, that he might rise again; the other, according to the gift of the gospel, was not awaiting redemption, but was bestowing it.

And therefore His burial was not unknown, but lifted up, which the creation could no longer hold, because through Him all creation hastened to be lifted up from the servitudes of corruption. No one therefore knows the burial of Moses, because all knew his life; but the burial of Christ we have seen, yet now no longer know, because we have recognized His resurrection; for His tomb had to be known, that the resurrection might be made manifest. And therefore in the Gospel the tomb is described with the utmost expressiveness; in the law it is not sought, because, although the law announced His resurrection, yet to us the series of the Gospel has most fully proved it.

Therefore, that we may complete what we proposed, it adds, it says, that 'she bore Abel'—that is, Eve, who before had grievously sinned, generated from herself a better resolve, that she might abolish the error of her former resolve. I am lying, unless this is proved in all cases. For we are born in such a way that first there is in us the feeble sense of infancy, afterward of boyhood, knowing only the care of the body, having no cultivation, no observance of things divine. Whence, to prove the evident newness of nature in the birth of Jesus Christ from a Virgin, the prophet says: 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, before he knows evil or good';

since before he knows good or evil he does not believe malice, that he may choose what is good; and further: 'before the child knows how to call father or mother, he shall receive the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians.' For He alone it was who was not taken by the vanity and carnal pride of this world, inasmuch as He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death—far unlike each one of us, who vainly exalt ourselves, puffed up by a mind of flesh. Whence also no one is without sin, not even an infant of a single day; but He did no sin. And therefore in us Cain is born first, preferring himself, afterward Abel is begotten, in whom there is reverence of the Godhead. First, then, what is evil creeps in; afterward, what is good is recognized.

But where there is good, there is the just; where justice, there holiness—that is, Abel, who cleaves to God, and 'Abel,' it says, 'became a shepherd of sheep,' but 'Cain tilled the ground.' It is not idle that, although Cain was begotten first, as the lesson teaches, Abel is set first in this place, and that the order of the names is not the same as the order of nature. What does this change of order intend, that it should mention the younger first, where the state of life and the practice of work is described? Let us inquire into the difference of offices, that we may gather the cause of the precedence. To till the ground is, in practice, prior, but in grace inferior to pasturing sheep.

For this is, as it were, the likeness of a certain teacher and ruler, and rightly did the elder begin from older things, while the younger preferred newer things, which would bring forth no thorns, no thistles, and would be subject to no judgment of condemnation. Lastly, Adam, guilty of sin, was sent forth from the paradise of delight, to till the ground. Rightly therefore, where these brothers are born, the order of nature is preserved also in the telling; but where the discipline of living is expressed, the younger is set before the elder, because, although younger in time, he is more excellent in virtue. For innocence is later in time than malice, and of an age, as it were, nearly equal, yet earlier in the nobility of merits; for old age is venerable not when gray with years, but with morals.

'And age,' it says, 'is an unspotted life in old age.' Where therefore generation is expressed, let Cain go before; where the preaching of disciplines is made, let Abel run before. Who, then, would deny that youth, and the very flower of youth in its beginnings, seethes with the allurements of various passions; but that, when a more mature age has succeeded, as though the storm of budding wantonness has been dispelled, tranquillity is poured back, and the vessel of the weary soul is drawn into certain quiet harbors? And so the grievous motions of our youth are calmed by the faithful anchorage of old age. Do not therefore doubt, admonished by such examples of nature, that malice precedes in time, but grows young in weakness.

The one has the wages of age, but virtue has the prerogative of glory, which the unjust man for the most part yields to the just, as to a judge. Of this matter the faithful divine Scripture is witness, which teaches that Esau, a man surnamed of folly, patiently yielded his birthright to his brother Jacob, so that he said: 'What is the birthright to me?' But what this man set aside, that the man endowed with the surname of exercise sought to merit. Does it not seem to you that Esau, as though conquered in the contest and judging himself unequal by the weakness of his own mind, yielded the crown to the victor, whom he saw bent by no allurements of the passions, whose very dust he himself could not endure? 'What,' he says, 'is the birthright to me?'

For among the slothful there are no insignia of virtue, but among the wise they are held in the first rank; for the pursuits of virtue are, as it were, certain instruments. And so, just as a warrior cannot exist without arms, neither can virtue exist without exercise. Whence also the Lord in the Gospel says: 'From the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and they who use force seize it'; and elsewhere: 'Seek the kingdom of God, and behold, all things are ready at hand for you.' Not to the sleeping nor to the idle, but to the watchful and the laboring are rewards promised; ... but for labor a reward is prepared, which, although it is not sweet to gratification, is nevertheless fruitful for reward. This the discourse of the law teaches, as we find it written:

'If,' it says, 'one man have two wives, one of them beloved and the other hateful, and they both bear him children, the beloved and the hateful, and the firstborn be the son of the hateful woman, on the day when he leaves his sons as heirs in his substance, he shall not be able to give the birthright to the son of the beloved woman, passing over the son of the hateful, but he shall acknowledge the firstborn son of the hateful woman, to give him a portion out of all that are found his, because he is the beginning of his sons, and to him are due the first-fruits.' How deep the secrets of mysteries lie hidden in the letters! Recognize, O soul, your offspring, and seek the mystery of that hateful woman. Within yourself you will find these things, if you search.

Recall your thoughts, read over again your feelings, and you will recognize to whom the first-fruits are due. For two women dwell together with each one of us, at odds in enmities and discords, filling, as it were with certain contentions of jealousy, the house of our soul. One of them is to us a thing of sweetness and love, a flattering counselor of pleasure, who is called Delight. This one we suppose to be our companion and of our household; that other we believe to be harsh, rough, and savage, whose name is Virtue.

She therefore, wanton with a harlot's motion, with gait broken by indulgences, casting with nodding eyes and playing eyelids the nets by which she captures the precious souls of young men—for 'the eye of a harlot is the snare of a sinner'—whomever she sees passing by in the corner of her house's passage with wavering perception, she accosts with gracious speeches, making the hearts of young men fly: restless at home, roving in the streets, lavish of kisses, cheap in modesty, rich in attire, her cheeks painted. For indeed, because she cannot possess the true beauty of nature, with adulterate dyes she pimps out an appearance of affected loveliness, not its truth.

Girt with a retinue of vices and surrounded by a certain chorus of wickednesses, the leader of crimes assails the wall of the human mind with such engines of words: 'I have a peace-offering; today I pay my vows. For this cause I have come forth to meet you, desiring your face, and I have found you. I have woven my couch with cords and spread it with tapestries from Egypt. I have sprinkled my couch with saffron, and my house with cinnamon. Come, let us enjoy friendship until daybreak; come, let us wrestle in desire.' For we see this likeness of the harlot expressed through the mouth of Solomon.

For what is so harlot-like as worldly pleasure, which enters from the window of her own house, first playing through the eyes the preludes of temptation, and penetrates swiftly, if you, gazing out into the street—that is, into the public roads of passers-by—do not direct the gaze of your mind into the inner mysteries of the law? She it is, surely, who with stronger bonds weaves a couch, as it were, of a fellowship associated with us, so that whoever reclines himself may be bound, and with a veil of reproachful deceit she covers the bed of her own body, to solicit the souls of young men, hiding the absence of her husband—that is, the neglect of the law. For the law is absent to those who sin; for if it were present, no offense would be committed. And therefore she says:

'For my husband is not at home in the house; he has gone a very long journey, having taken a bag of money in his hand.' What shall I say this is, unless perhaps that the rich think there is nothing that does not yield to their money, and that they wish the law to be venal for their favor? Pleasure scatters her odors, because she does not have the odor of Christ; she displays treasures, promises kingdoms, pledges continual loves, promises unexplored embraces, learning without a tutor, discourses without a monitor, a life without anxiety, soft sleep, insatiable desire. 'Seducing him,' it says, 'with much blandishment of words, and binding him with the snares of her lips, she has drawn him as far as the house.' And he followed her, encompassed about.

The hall shone, splendid with royal luxury, its walls embossed, and on the wet floor the pavements swam with wine. The ground reeked with ointment, strewn with the bones of fish and slippery with flowers already withering. There the tumult of revelers, the shouting of those contending, the brawls of litigants, the concert of singers, the din of dancers, the cackle of laughers, the applause of the wanton—all things confused, nothing in the order of nature. Dancing-girls shorn, and boys with crimped hair, the indigestion of feasters, the belching of eaters, the thirst of drunkards, yesterday's surfeit, today's drunkenness, cups refilled with the vomit of drinkers, with a greater odor of drunkenness than if only fresh wines were reeking.

She herself, standing in the midst, says: 'Drink and be drunken, that each one may fall and not rise again. He is first with me who is the most lost of all; he is mine who is not his own; he is more pleasing to me who is more worthless to himself. The golden cup of Babylon is in my hand, making drunk all the earth; of my wine all the nations have drunk. Whoever, then, is the more foolish, let him turn aside to me, and to those lacking wisdom I give command, saying: Enjoy sweetly the hidden loaves, and drink the stolen water that is sweeter. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die. Our life shall pass like the traces of a cloud, and shall be dispersed like a mist. Come, then, let us enjoy the good things that are, and use the creature as our youth, swiftly.'

'Let us fill ourselves with precious wine and with ointments, and let not the flower of the season pass us by. Let us crown ourselves with roses before they wither. Let there be no meadow that our luxury does not traverse; everywhere let us leave the signs of merriment. Here all things are left behind; no one will carry anything away with himself except what he has perceived by bodily pleasure. Lastly, I myself have established philosophy; nor is there any truer than that which asserts the good to be what is sweet and delightful. Believe, therefore, either the philosophy or the wisdom of Solomon.' Having heard these things, like a stag shot with an arrow, he sticks wounded in the liver. Pitying him, and seeing him about to fall quickly, Virtue runs to meet him unexpectedly, fearing lest amid the delays the human mind be captured by the soothing allurements.

'Openly,' he says, 'I appeared to you who were not seeking me,' lest a woman, unbridled and dissolute, who knows no shame, deceive the unwary and entrap you. She sits at the doors of her house, openly upon a seat in the streets, calling out to those who pass by. Now therefore, my son, hear me and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not your heart turn aside into her ways; for by wounding many she has cast them down, and they are beyond number whom she has slaughtered. The ways of the underworld are her house, leading down into the chamber of death. Take far from yourself a perverse mouth, and thrust unjust lips far away from you. Let your eyes look straight ahead; do not give heed to the deceitful woman. For honey drips from the lips of the harlot, who for a time fattens your throat, but afterward you will find her more bitter than gall.

The day would fail me sooner than I could set forth her vices, which nevertheless have been described and expressed in the Proverbs by the mouth of Wisdom. Let not the lust of beauty overcome you. It is adulterous, smeared with paints, by no means shining with true and genuine comeliness. Nor let yourself be caught by your eyes; for nets are spread all around. Be rather like him and follow him who leaps upon the mountains and springs across the hills, looking forth through the windows, rising high above the nets. The bonds of pleasure are evil. It delights the eyes, soothes the ears, but defiles the mind. It lies much, attaches falsehoods, withdraws truths, promises money, offers gold, but takes away discipline. But do you rather receive discipline than money, and knowledge above tested gold;

for she is better than precious stones. I will not hide from you what are reported to be her highest enticements, lest I seem to cover up what is displeasing in pleasure and to cast a shadow over what is pleasing. For she lifts up and exalts the mind with persuasive words; she shows all the kingdoms of the earth, saying: All these things I will give you, if falling down you will worship me. There beware lest you be caught by things that slip past and do not abide, for which there is great temptation. The Lord Jesus has surely taught you how to resist temptations of this kind. The devil had first set the snare of gluttony, saying: If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. The Lord answered: Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. With this saying he loosed the snare.

Again the devil set the second snare, that of boastfulness, which is wont to strangle even a good mind running along prosperous paths. And he led him, it says, into Jerusalem and set him upon the pinnacle of the temple and said to him: If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down from here; for it is written that he has given his angels charge concerning you to keep you, for in their hands they will bear you up, lest perhaps you dash your foot against a stone. And so, though the Lord Jesus could have cast himself down without any danger, having spiritual flights at his command, yet, lest it be a kind of boasting, he answered the devil: You shall not tempt the Lord your God. At the same time he taught us to beware lest we do the will of the devil.

If therefore even true boasting is to be avoided, how much more ought no one to boast of false things as though true? The third snare remains, that of avarice and ambition. He showed, set upon a mountain, all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. Well 'in a moment,' because they cannot be lasting. Wait a little, and they swiftly pass away. And so those who pursue them seem to themselves to be on a mountain, but they are not enduring, as you have it written: I saw the wicked exalted on high and lifted up above the cedars of Lebanon: and I passed by, and behold, he was not. But he who makes much of these things seems to worship the devil, whose god is the belly and whose glory is in their shame. But do you seek glory in God, who says to you:

You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him alone, from whom you may receive eternal things, not temporal. Yet if these things also delight anyone, let them be sought more moderately from him who is the true fount of all. For even those very possessions which the devil seems to possess for himself are not his own, as he himself said: To you I will give all this power and the glory of them, for they have been handed over to me. Hope therefore in him; though for a short life a long provision need not be sought, yet hope in him who founded the whole creation, who handed those things over to the devil for a time, not that he might possess them, but that he might tempt; for there could be no crown without a contest. The doubtful had to be tested, that the just might be crowned.

And so he gave these things to the devil, because in these very things lies the punishment of the receiver, if he knows not how to use them. For what is treasure to the dissolute man but the cost of dissoluteness? But the man approved is not dissolute, but frugal. And therefore use as a frugal man the things set before you, so that when you eat much you do not become hateful; for wakeful nights and torments belong to the greedy man. And further on: If you are forced in eating, rise and vomit. And it will refresh you and you will not bring weakness upon your body. And so gluttony has slain very many, frugality none: wines have harmed countless men, thrift no one. Very many have poured out their soul amid the feasts and have filled the tables with their own blood.

From others indigestion snatched away both voice and sense together, and if to some indigestion was not harmful, to these drunkenness brought ruin. Drunkenness has driven some into crime, though it is itself a crime, and has reduced others to want. Lastly, hear whom Christ shuts out. When, he says, the master of the house has entered and shut the door, you will begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying: Open to us. And answering he will say: I know not whence you are; depart from me, all you workers of iniquity. Then you will begin to say: We ate before you and drank, and you taught in our streets. And he will say to you: I know not whence you are. You have heard what he said about those who eat: hear now what he says about those who fast:

Blessed are those who now hunger and thirst, for they shall be filled. And further on: Woe to you who are full, for you shall hunger. But do you wish to eat, wish to drink? Come to the banquet of Wisdom, who invites all with great proclamation, saying: Come and eat my bread and drink the wine which I have mixed for you. Do songs delight you, which soothe the banqueter? Hear the Church exhorting, hear her singing not only in songs but even in the Song of Songs: Eat, my neighbors, and drink and be inebriated, my brethren. But this inebriation makes men sober, this is the inebriation of grace, not of drunkenness. It begets gladness, not staggering.

And do not fear that at the banquet of the Church pleasant fragrances, or sweet foods, or varied drinks, or noble guests, or seemly servants should be lacking to you. What is more noble than Christ, who at the banquet of the Church both serves and is served? To the side of this guest as he reclines join yourself, and join yourself to God; do not disdain the table which Christ chose, saying: I have entered into my garden, my sister, my spouse. I have gathered my myrrh with my spices, I have eaten my bread with my honey and have drunk my wine with my milk. In the garden, that is, in paradise, is the banquet of the Church, where Adam was before he committed sin. There Eve reclined, before she created and brought forth guilt.

There you will gather myrrh, that is, the burial of Christ, so that, buried together with him through baptism into death, just as he rose from the dead, you also may rise. There you will eat bread, which strengthens the heart of man; you will taste honey, by which the passage of your throat is made sweet. You will drink wine with milk, that is, with splendor and sincerity, whether because it is pure simplicity, or because it is the unstained grace which is received for the remission of sins, or because she suckles the little ones with the breasts of her consolation, so that, weaned amid delights, they may grow up into the fullness of perfect age. Enter therefore into this banquet.

Or do you fear lest a house too narrow and a small space for the banquet should crowd you? O Israel, how great is the house of God and how vast the place of his possession! Great and without end, lofty and immeasurable. There were those giants who were from the beginning, of great stature, skilled in battle. These God did not choose. And rightly he did not choose them, because they knew battle, not peace; and therefore do you learn peace, that you may be chosen by God. But lest perhaps you think the greatness of the house unadorned and lest pillared lodgings delight you, Wisdom has built herself a house and set up seven pillars. The Lord Jesus himself also relates that there are many mansions with his Father. In this house, therefore, you shall feast on the foods of the soul and the drinks of the mind.

so that afterward you may never hunger nor thirst; for he who eats, eats unto satiety, and he who drinks, drinks unto inebriation. But this inebriation is the guardian of chastity, while that inebriation of wine is the kindling of lust, by which through the flesh the inner vitals are heated, the soul takes fire, the spirit is burned up. A savage goad of crimes is lust, which never allows the affection to remain at rest. By night it seethes, by day it pants, it rouses from sleep, draws away from business, calls back from reason, takes away counsel, disquiets lovers, casts down the fallen, lies in wait for the chaste, by attaining inflames and by use is kindled. There is no measure to sinning, and the insatiable thirst for wickedness cannot be quenched except by the death of the lover. And therefore the Apostle says:

Flee fornication, that by swift flight we may avoid the savagery of that frenzied mistress and escape from a foul servitude. For what shall I say of avarice, that insatiable greed for money and a kind of lust for coin, which the more it has carried off, the more it believes itself poor? Envious toward all, cheap to itself, amid the greatest riches needy in disposition, it makes scant in feeling what it abounds in income. There is no measure to seizing where there is no measure to coveting. So it inflames the mind, so it feeds the mind with its own fire, that it differs only in this, that the former is an adulterer of beauties, the latter of lands. It shakes the elements. It furrows the sea, digs up the earth, wearies heaven with its vows, neither pleased with fair weather nor condemning at clouds, and finds fault with the yearly produce and the offspring of the earth.

But this is a sickness of the soul, not health. Finally, Ecclesiastes says: There is an evil malady which I have seen under the sun, riches kept for the harm of those who possess them. And above: He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver. Nor is there an end to their acquisition. If you seek treasures, take the invisible and hidden ones, which you should seek in the highest heavens, not those in the veins of the earth. Be poor in spirit and you will be rich whatever your wealth, for the life of man is not in the abundance of riches, but in virtue and faith.

These riches will make you truly rich, if you are rich toward God.' You have heard the mysteries of pleasure, you have also heard the gifts of our own abundance, which I have thought should be displayed not as things to be covered with furnishings, but as things to be shown by the bare words of Scripture, so that they might shine by their own light and of themselves send forth a voice in turn. For neither sun nor moon need an interpreter; they have as interpreter the brightness of their own light, with which the whole world is filled. To them illumination is faith, a witness without an informer, so to speak unattested, which needs no testimony of another and suddenly pours itself before the eyes of all. Our works, therefore, are not announced, but they cry out and announce themselves.

Indeed, that I may not pass over even what is reckoned laborious in our affairs: faith is required, zeal is desired, deeds are sought. For by these three the Lord Jesus defined the duties of human devotion, saying: Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. And further on: Everyone therefore who hears these my words and does them is like a wise man. He who has zealously pursued these things will receive the primacy of the blessing, like the patriarch Jacob, who by continence and faith supplanted the traces of human passions. He says: God had mercy on me, and all things are mine.

Let us therefore merit this mercy by faith, zeal, and works, by which disciplines Israel found the grace of God and through it all things: for he rejoiced that not the abundance of this world but the disciplines of the virtues were at his command. Let us appoint as our heirs these things, which holy Abraham appointed for himself in his son Isaac, assigning the whole inheritance of his works to a wise and just man, and leaving no hereditary right to the handmaids or to the sons of the handmaids, but only gifts of a donation. For the perfect virtues receive the whole patrimony of glory, while to the common and middling something cheap is sprinkled. And therefore Hagar, who in Latin is called a stranger and sojourner, and Keturah, which means the fragrant one, are not heirs.

For he who uses the middling disciplines is a sojourner, not a dweller in wisdom. Sprinkled with fragrance, he is not filled with fruit. But it is food, not fragrance, that brings health, since fragrance is the herald of fruits. And so we recognize that the principal disciplines are to be preferred to those that follow, and the native to the sojourners. This according to the natural sense. But according to the mystery, Abraham, the father of the nations, conferred upon his lawful seed, which is Christ, the whole inheritance of his faith—he who was as a stranger in this land, so that he might bear back the fragrance rather than the fruit of this life.

When the mind hears these things, it turns itself away from pleasure and joins itself to virtue, admiring the grace of true comeliness—a pure affection, a simple judgment, a modest garment, that is, not in the persuasion of speech but in the demonstration of the Spirit, such as is the form of the apostolic sentence—gleaming with the cloak of wisdom and piety more precious than all gold; then receiving the choir of prudence, temperance, fortitude, justice, which breathe forth the fragrance of the disciplines, striking reverence, infusing grace. And so, moved by such things, it chooses the pursuits of virtue, to which Jacob, a man full of training, applied his mind.

And therefore he is brought forward as a shepherd of sheep, because to rule over the body and its senses and pleasures, and to keep measure over the voice, lest like a sheep it wander uncertain, is reckoned more excellent than to govern peoples and to preside over cities; for it is harder for anyone to rule himself than another. To conquer the mind, to restrain anger, and to compel into one the warring laws of the flesh and the mind is the work of a certain immortal man, whom the gate of hell shall not seize. Finally, the lawgiver himself claimed this office for himself, that he should pasture the sheep of Jethro, who is called 'superfluous,' and drive them into the desert, because he forced the irrational and superfluous and vulgar loquacity of speech into certain hidden mysteries of sober doctrine.

And therefore shepherds of sheep were an abomination to the Egyptians; for all who are given over to the passions and pleasures of the body of this kind and indulge their own avoid with a certain execration the arbiter of the word and the teacher of virtue. And therefore through these enigmas Moses taught that the sacrifices fitting for God—which every foolish man shuns—are the works and precepts of virtue. And therefore Abel is read to be a shepherd, but Cain a tiller of the earth, who, being a foolish man in regard to his brother, could not bear to carry the form and likeness of virtue expressed. And it came to pass after some days that Cain offered to the Lord a gift from the fruits of the earth. A twofold fault:

one, that he offered after some days; the other, that it was from the fruits, not from the first-fruits. But a sacrifice is commended both by swiftness and by grace. Whence it is commanded: If you vow a vow, make no delay to pay it; for it is better not to vow a vow than to vow and not pay; for when you delay, you do not pay. Now a vow is a request for good things from God with a promise of discharging a gift. And therefore, when you have obtained what you asked, it is the mark of an ingrate to put off the promise. But sometimes either forgetfulness of what was obtained creeps in upon the negligent, or it is the resolve of the swollen and puffed-up to claim outcomes for themselves and to assign them to their own virtues, and not to attribute them to the grace of the Author, but to consider themselves the authors of their own goods.

The third kind is indeed of lesser sin, but of nearly equal arrogance, namely of those who do not deny that God is the giver of good things, but think that whatever has befallen them has been justly conferred on them on account of their own prudence and the merits of their other virtues. They suppose, moreover, that they have been held worthy of divine grace because they would by no means seem unworthy to have such things come to them through divine benefactions. Lest therefore anything of this kind happen, whereby your vow may become a sin to you, the law has informed and instructed you, the Lord who gave the law saying: Take heed to yourself, lest you forget the benefits of the Lord your God and keep not his commandments and judgments and ordinances of justice, which I command you today:

lest, when you have eaten and are full, and when you have built good houses and begun to dwell in them, and when your sheep and your oxen are multiplied, and you are filled with bronze, silver, and gold, and you begin to possess all things, and your barns are full, you exalt your heart and forget the Lord your God. You will then forget the Lord, when you have forgotten yourself. But if you recognize that you are weak, you will recognize that God is above all things, and you will not be able to be unmindful of him, so as to render him the reverence due. Learn now how each one is admonished, lest he think himself the author of his own goods. Say not, it says, in your heart:

My strength and my power have wrought for me this great might; but you shall keep in mind the Lord your God, for it is he who gives strength, that you may do mightily. Whence the Apostle rightly, as an interpreter of the law, did not glory in his own strength, but said that he was the least of the apostles, and that whatever he was, was of divine grace and not of his own merit, and that we have nothing which we have not received. For what, he says, do you have that you have not received? But if you have received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it? You have learned, therefore, to follow humility rather than arrogance, to strive after diligence rather than power. You have received saving precepts; do not neglect the useful instruments of medicine, by which every fiber of a deadly wound is cut out.

He also who justifies himself, lest he be puffed up by the swelling of his own heart—he too received a wholesome command, the oracle resounding to this effect: Say not in your heart, when the Lord your God has begun to consume those nations from before your face, saying: On account of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land: but on account of the iniquities of these nations the Lord will root them out from before your face. Not on account of your righteousness nor on account of the equity of your heart did you enter to possess this land, but on account of the iniquity of the nations the Lord will destroy them from before your face and will restore his covenant, which he swore to your fathers. The covenant is the perfect grace of God;

for God gives nothing imperfect, and perfect is virtue and the works of virtue. Now it is called a covenant (testament) by which the inheritance of good things is conveyed. Rightly it is called both a testament and divine, since the things which are truly good are conferred by the attestation of heavenly commands. And it is called a testament because it was dedicated by blood, the old in figure, the new in truth. By this covenant we hold the pledge of divine grace, for God so loved this world that he gave his only Son for us all. Whence, proclaiming the perfection of grace, the Apostle says: How has he not also with him given us all things? The first grace, then, of a vow is the swiftness of its discharge.

Finally Abraham, commanded to offer his son for a burnt offering, offered him not after some days as Cain offered, but rising in the morning he saddled his ass and took with him two servants and Isaac his son, and cutting wood for the burnt offering he rose and departed and came on the third day to the place which God had told him. First note the early and hastening zeal of the one about to sacrifice, so that there was no delay of waiting except until the oracle was heard; then that he himself saddled his ass, undertook all the service, and prepared the things necessary for the sacrifice, and led his victim accompanied also by the two virtues of faith, sure of the power of God and secure of his goodness.

But as to his saying 'on the third day,' either it is that devotion ought to be continual and perpetual—for time is threefold, past, present, and future, by which we are admonished that no forgetfulness of God's benefits, whether past, present, or future, ought to creep in, but a tenacious memory of grace should persevere and obedience not be lacking—or it is because he who sacrifices ought to believe in one splendor, one light of the Trinity; for to him who faithfully sacrifices the day shines, there is no night. So too in Exodus Moses says: We will go a journey of three days and sacrifice to the Lord our God. But elsewhere also, when God had appeared to Abraham at the oak of Mamre, Abraham, it says, looking up with his eyes saw, and behold, three men stood over him.

And seeing them he ran to meet them at the door of his tent and bowed himself to the ground and said: Lord, if I have found grace before you. He sees three, he adores one, he offers three measures of fine flour. For although God is immeasurable, yet he holds the measure of all things, as it is written: Who has measured the waters with his hand and the heaven with his palm and the whole earth with his closed fist? To the Trinity, therefore, perfect in each of the persons, in the inner secret of his mind—that is, of spiritual fine flour—the holy patriarch offered his sacrifice. This is the fine flour which that woman in the Gospel grinds, who shall be taken; for the one, it says, shall be taken, the other shall be left. The Church shall be taken, the synagogue left, or the good mind shall be taken, the wicked left behind.

But that you may know that Abraham also believed in Christ: Abraham, he says, saw my day and rejoiced. And he who believes in Christ believes also in the Father, and he who perfectly believes in the Father believes in the Son and the Holy Spirit. Three measures, then, one fine flour, that is, it was one sacrifice, which was offered to the venerable Trinity with a certain equal measure of devotion and a fitting fullness of piety. Recognize yet further the zeal of a swift devotion. He ran, it says, and took one calf, tender and good, and gave it to a servant and hastened to prepare it. Everywhere energetic devotion, and therefore his gift was acceptable to God. You have also elsewhere that you should anticipate the rising of the sun with prayer: Go forth, it says, to meet the rising of the sun.

You have in the Gospel the Lord Jesus saying: Zacchaeus, make haste and come down. And he who had obtained what he wished, to see Christ, and had obtained still more, to be seen and called by Christ, hastening came down and received him with joy. And therefore the Lord approved his affection and rewarded him with a swift recompense, saying: Because today salvation has come to this house. For the Lord too hastened to the benefit, and therefore he did not wait to promise and fulfill afterward, but did it first and declared it afterward. For he said: Salvation has come, which surely was the mark of one who anticipates, not of one who promises. The just man therefore commends his vow by swiftness.

And therefore our fathers ate the Passover in haste, with their loins girded and not loosing their feet from the bands of their sandals, and laying aside as it were a bodily burden, so that they might be ready for the passing over; for the Passover of the Lord is a passing over from the passions to the exercises of virtue. And therefore it is called the Lord's Passover, since both then in that figure of the lamb the truth of the Lord's passion was announced, and now its grace is celebrated. Seek this quickly therefore, O soul, that you may also quickly hear, as Jacob too heard: What is this that you have found so quickly, my son? And he answered according to the teaching: It is what the Lord your God delivered into my hands. Quickly God gives, for he spoke and they were made, he commanded and they were created.

For the Word of God is not, as someone has said, a work, but a worker, as you have it written: My Father works until now, and I work. He anticipates all things; for he is before all things as the Father, and in all things as the same Father, penetrating all things. For it is mighty and sharp and sharper than any sword, penetrating even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, anticipating the thoughts of all. Of whom God the Father says: Now you shall see whether my word overtakes you or not. For where God is, there too is the Word, as he said: We will come and make our abode with him. And as you have read elsewhere concerning God: I stood here before you, so too the Word says: Before you stood under the fig tree, I saw you.

And it is said concerning the Word himself, that is, the Son of God: In the midst of you stands one whom you know not. For wherever the saints are, there in their midst the Word of God, filling the inmost hearts of each, fills seas and lands. And while he is here, he is also elsewhere, with no change of place, but filling everywhere with the presence of himself; for he is everywhere, who is through all and in all, leaving no place free of himself, and where he is present he was, and where he was he is present. And therefore he who knows that the Word of God is swift asks quickly and quickly obtains. But Pharaoh, who spent his zeal on vain and empty opinions, when Egypt was filled with frogs that gave back an empty sound of things and a vain noise, said to Moses who spoke:

Appoint for me when I should pray for you and for your servants and for your people, that the Lord may destroy the frogs—when, placed in such great necessity, he ought to have asked that he might pray at once and not delay, he answered: Tomorrow; idle and negligent of delay, he was to pay the penalty of the delay with the ruin of Egypt. And so this man, when he obtained his request, became forgetful of the grace and, exalted in the mind of his flesh, forgot God. But humility commended prayer, since that Pharisee too was reproved, who enumerated his fastings as though they were benefits and as it were cast them in God's face and recorded himself as exempt from crimes, but the publican was praised, who, standing afar off, would not lift his eyes to heaven, but smote his breast, saying:

Lord God, be merciful to me a sinner. And therefore the divine sentence preferred him, saying that this publican went down justified rather than that Pharisee. For he is justified who confesses his own sin, as the Lord himself said: Tell your iniquities that you may be justified. And David says: A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; and again: A heart contrite and humbled God does not despise. Jeremiah too says: My soul in anguish and my anxious spirit cries out to you. Therefore both Pharaoh and the Assyrian, who said: Which of the gods of these nations has delivered his land out of my hand, that your God should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?

were cast down by their own exaltation, but the just man, like Jacob, refers whatever good he has obtained to God the Author, saying of all that he recognizes to have prospered for him that the Lord your God delivered them into my hands. This therefore is the better discharge of vows, as David too says: Sacrifice to God a sacrifice of praise and render your vows to the Most High. To praise God is to commend and to discharge a vow. Whence that Samaritan also is preferred above the rest, who, when cleansed from leprosy with nine others according to the Lord's command, alone returned to Christ, magnifying God and giving thanks. Of whom Jesus says: Was there none of these who returned and gave thanks to God except this stranger? And he said to him:

Rise and go your way, for your faith has saved you. There is also that discipline of commending prayer and the vow, that we should not divulge our prayer, but keep the mysteries hidden, as Abraham kept them, who made cakes baked in the ashes. The fathers too kept them, who baked the dough they had brought out of Egypt, making in the ashes the unleavened bread which in Greek they call 'enkryphia,' because they are hidden in the ash, signifying—just as that leaven which the woman in the Gospel hid in three measures until the whole was leavened—that the teaching of the mysteries also must be kept pressed down and concealed. This the Lord taught more openly in his Gospel, saying:

But when you pray, go into your chamber, and when the door is shut, pray to your Father in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up many words; and further on: For your Father knows what you have need of before you ask him. Your chamber is the inner recess of the mind and the hidden place of the soul. Enter into this chamber of yours; that is, enter into the depths of your heart, go in wholly out of the outer porch of your body, and shut your door. Learn what your door should be: Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, and a door round about my lips. Paul too asks that prayer be made for himself, that, as he says, a door of utterance may be opened to me to speak the mystery of Christ.

But he, as one chosen for the preaching of the Gospel, rightly desired a door of utterance to be opened to him, because from his mouth came the salvation of the nations, from his mouth proceeded the life of the peoples; we, however, should shut our door, lest fault enter, lest any slip of speech go out. Fault enters, if a slip has gone forth. Hear how fault enters: In the multitude of words, it says, you shall not escape sin. Wordiness went out, sin came in, because in much speaking the word that goes forth is by no means weighed. One slips imprudently, although even to speak anything beyond measure is itself a great sin. Therefore beware of speaking imprudently; for the lips of the imprudent lead him into evils. Beware of exalting yourself in prayer; for the prayer of one who humbles himself pierces the clouds.

Beware lest you incautiously divulge the mysteries of the Creed or of the Lord's Prayer. Or do you not know how grave it is to contract sin in the very prayer where you hope for remedy? Surely the Lord taught through the prophet that this is a grievous curse, saying: And let his prayer become sin; unless perhaps you reckon this a small matter. For it is distrust to judge concerning the power of God that you are not heard unless you cry aloud. Let your works cry out, let your faith cry, let your love cry, let your sufferings cry, let your blood cry, like that of holy Abel, of whom God said to Cain: The voice of your brother's blood cries to me. He hears you in secret who cleanses in secret. We cannot hear except one who speaks; but with God it is not words that speak, but thoughts.

And that you may know this to be true, the Lord Jesus said to the Jews: Why do you think evil in your hearts? This is not the voice of one inquiring, but of one who knows. The evangelist makes this clear to you, saying: But Jesus knew their thoughts. Therefore as the Son knows, so also does the Father know. You have learned that the Son knows; hear now, that the Father knows, the Son who is the Father's counsellor and witness, saying: For your Father knows what you have need of before you ask him. Cook, therefore, your hearth-cake by the warmth of the Holy Spirit; cook also the passions of your soul by the heat of the Word. And if your passions are still rather raw, having perhaps but lately come out of Egypt, cover them over and boil them out with a gentle heat, lest, being unable to bear a fiercer fire, they be scorched rather than cooked;

For there are very many things which displease when raw but delight when cooked. Cherish the deep mysteries in your breast, lest by premature speech you commit them, as it were uncooked, to faithless or weak ears, and the hearer turn away and reject them with loathing. But if he should taste them better cooked, he would perceive the sweetness of spiritual food. And divinely the Lord Jesus taught you also the goodness of the Father, who knows how to give good things, that you may ask good things of the Good One; and he urged earnestly and repeatedly that we must pray, not that prayer should be drawn out wearisomely, but that it should be frequent and constant. Vain things commonly cloud a long entreaty, but when prayer is intermitted, negligence creeps in altogether.

Then he admonishes that, when you ask pardon for yourself, you should know that it must then most of all be bestowed on others, so that you may commend your prayer by the voice of your own deed. The Apostle also teaches that we must pray without anger and disputing, so that your prayer be not disturbed nor interrupted. He teaches also that we must pray in every place, since the Saviour says: Enter into your chamber. But understand it to be, not a chamber enclosed by walls, in which your limbs are shut up, but the chamber which is within you, in which your thoughts are enclosed, in which your senses dwell. This chamber of your prayer is everywhere with you, and everywhere it is secret, of which no one is judge except God alone.

Furthermore you are taught that we must pray especially also for the people, that is, for the whole body, for all the members of your mother, in which is the token of mutual charity. For if you pray for yourself, you will be praying only for yourself; and if each one prays only for himself, the grace of the one praying is less than that of the one who intercedes; but now, because individuals pray for all, all also pray for individuals. Therefore, to conclude: if you pray only for yourself, you alone, as we have said, will be praying for yourself; but if you pray for all, all will be praying for you, since you too are among all. Thus great is the recompense, that by the prayers of individuals the suffrages of the whole people are gained for individuals. In this there is no arrogance, but rather greater humility and richer fruit.

But now it is time to pass to another matter, since concerning that offering which Cain brought after some days we have spoken fully, that it was a token of arrogant pride, since the very offering of a vow ought to be timely, lest we seem to have hoped for remedy more from human arts, that is, from skill in healing and the juices of herbs, than to have sought aid from God. For to him we must first flee for refuge, who is able to heal the passions of our soul. But men, in a preposterous order, first summon help to themselves from men, and when human aids have failed, then they suppose that the grace of divine favour is to be entreated. Therefore, with Cain shut out and his fault convicted, let us examine another defect of his offering. He offered of the fruits of the earth—not the firstfruits of his first fruits to God:

That is, he claimed the firstfruits first for himself, but offered to God what came after. And so, since the soul, like a mistress, is to be preferred to the body as to a servant, we ought assuredly to offer its firstfruits, that is, those of the soul before those of the body. The firstfruits of the soul are the first movements of good disciplines. Although these are later in time than the firstfruits of the body—which are food, growth, sight, hearing and touch, smell, voice (but mind and sense are partly of the soul, partly of the body)—yet they are prior in dignity to the disciplines. The first of these is thanksgiving offered to God with a pure heart and simple speech. These gifts Abel offered, and therefore God had regard to his gifts, because he offered of the firstfruits.

It is added, therefore, that it was of the firstlings of his sheep and of their fat. Consider that he offered not of insensible things, but of living creatures. For the animate is greater than the earthly, since the animate is next to the spiritual. For that which is spiritual is not first, but that which is animate, then that which is spiritual. That which is animate breathes, it has a vital spirit; not so that which is of the fruits of the earth. Then he offered not the second, but the first; not the meagre, but the fat. Such as the Law approved and commanded to be offered, as it is written: And it shall be, it says, when God brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to your fathers, and gives it to you, that you shall set apart everything that opens the womb, the males, to the Lord.

Everything that opens the womb of your herds and of your flocks, whatever males are born to you, you shall sanctify to the Lord. Everything that opens the womb of an ass you shall exchange for a sheep; but if you will not exchange it, you shall redeem it. What is so profound a mystery, so high and hidden a wisdom, as that which in certain veins of simple words you may apprehend and draw out the abundance of spiritual grace? For the Canaanites are restless and unquiet. When therefore you have entered into their land, those whom you perceive cast out of their possession because of the fickleness and unrest and instability of their manners, do you hold fast to constancy. Let no base reasoning, no fickle speech disturb you—for this is the Canaanite.